


Danger, Men At Work

by fourthingsandawizard



Series: Galaxies and Greenhouses: Oneshots [4]
Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Comedy, Dan Howell - Freeform, Friendship, Galaxies and Greenhouses, Gen, Hogwarts AU, Humor, Modern wizards au, Phil Lester - Freeform, Post-Hogwarts, Wizard Dan, Youtuber Dan, platonic, wizard Phil, youtuber Phil
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-03
Updated: 2017-12-03
Packaged: 2019-02-09 22:04:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,137
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12897780
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fourthingsandawizard/pseuds/fourthingsandawizard
Summary: “I mean, all I would have to do is give the drill a littlezap, and we can all go back to peace and quiet,” Dan said, glancing over his shoulder at Phil. “Well, I mean, other than still having to listen to the downstairs neighbor’s...activities…”Phil snorted over the top of his mug. “Yeah, and I’m sure the Muggles wouldn’t beat allalarmed when the piece of heavy machinery they’re using suddenly goes completely silent. Need I remind youyet againof the Statute of Secrecy?”Or, the one where the drilling outside their apartment drives Dan to attempt increasingly crazy stunts to block out the noise, while Phil tries to deal with a flat that is literally starting to fall apart around them.





	Danger, Men At Work

**Author's Note:**

> This oneshot takes place in the Phan Hogwarts/Modern Day Wizards AU established in my chaptered fic [Galaxies and Greenhouses](http://http://archiveofourown.org/works/7520281/chapters/17093110), which should _probably_ be read before reading this fic, but isn't absolutely necessary.

Phil blinked awake slowly, eyes struggling to focus on the sun-streaked ceiling above him. He slipped one arm out of the blue and green burrito he wrapped himself in overnight and fumbled around on his bedside table, searching for either his wand or his glasses, knowing locating one would help him quickly find the other.

After a few failed attempts (and almost destroying a lamp), his fingers finally brushed against his wand and he gripped it tight, muttering out a croaky, “ _Accio_ glasses,” in his morning voice, still scratchy from disuse. 

His glasses jumped up seemingly of their own accord from where he had apparently knocked them in the floor, and as Phil settled the black frames on his nose, he thanked his lucky stars he didn’t accidentally step on them. Merlin knows you can only magically repair your glasses so many times before they start to feel crooked on your face. 

With a quick stretch of his arms over his head and a glance in the mirror to see how bad his overnight quiff looked, Phil began his daily shuffle to the kitchen in search of caffeine. His groggy half-asleep brain silently thanked past-Phil for making a grocery run the day before for coffee. Sure, he could have attempted making his own with magic, but in Phil’s opinion, Muggle instant tasted better than just about any wand-brewed coffee, no matter how many times Dan insisted otherwise.

Triple checking that the glass door was actually _open_ this time, Phil stepped into the kitchen and flipped the lightswitch, only to let out a yelp and drop his wand in surprise at the sight of a figure standing at the window.

“And a good morning to you, too,” Dan offered in reply to Phil’s less than dignified entrance, not moving from his spot across the kitchen where his back was turned toward Phil as he stared intently outside.

“Great Dumbledore’s ghost, Dan! You scared me half to death!” Phil exclaimed, grabbing his wand from the floor and giving it a flick to start the kettle boiling. “What are you doing up so early?”

“Not up early,” Dan shrugged, nose pressed to the window and breath fogging the glass. “Up _still._ Never went to bed.”

“Ah, I thought I heard you still in the lounge pretty late last night,” Phil replied, checking to make sure Dan’s back was definitely turned before sneakily grabbing his flatmate’s cereal from the cabinet instead of his own, pouring himself a bowl.

“I just can’t believe it! I feel so betrayed!” Dan exclaimed suddenly, whipping around so fast that Phil nearly spilled the milk he was pouring.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Phil insisted around the mouthful of dry cereal he had already popped in his mouth, attempting to casually maneuver the bowl behind his back to hide the evidence.

Dan’s eyes narrowed. “We’ll come back to _that_ , you cheeky little snek,” he said, pointing to the poorly-concealed stolen cereal, “but I was actually talking about _this_.”

Dan reached out a hand, dragging a stumbling Phil over to stand next to him and nodding at the window. Taking the cue, Phil stepped forward and peeked through the glass, but he didn’t immediately see anything out of the ordinary, and certainly nothing that would have left Dan feeling “betrayed.”

Phil glanced over at the younger man’s expectant face, noting the deep purple bags under his eyes that were much more visible now that Phil was standing closer, and he began to worry that the sleepless night may have left his friend a bit...delusional.

“Dan,” Phil said softly, tiptoeing on eggshells so as not to disturb him in his sleep-deprived state, “what exactly am I supposed to be looking at?”

Dan rolled his eyes at the overly cautious tone, pointing to direct Phil’s attention. Phil squinted a bit behind his glasses, but with Dan’s added assistance, his eyes finally locked on the offending object in front of the building next door. 

“No! It can’t be!” he exclaimed, looking back to Dan for some sign that the younger man was just playing a prank on him. At the somber expression on Dan’s face, though, Phil was forced to resign himself to the truth.

“I’m afraid it’s all very, very real, Philly,” Dan responded, shaking his head and laying a supportive hand on Phil’s shoulder. 

“But why? We watched them pack up all the equipment and leave last month!” Phil pouted as he turned back to the window. “I remember because I wanted to set off fireworks with my wand, but you wouldn’t let me do it indoors because you thought I’d catch the rave tree on fire!”

Dan shrugged glumly, nose pressing against the glass again as he joined Phil in staring down the seemingly innocuous drill that would inevitably soon begin haunting their every waking—and sometimes even sleeping—moment in their flat.

“I think they were just drill-teasing us, Phil.”

Phil fixed the other man with a disgusted look, to which Dan rolled his eyes and bumped Phil’s shoulder.

“You perv, I didn’t mean it to sound so...kinky,” Dan said, barely stifling a giggle. “I just meant they were teasing us by leaving for the holidays and letting us _think_ they were gone for good, only to come screeching back into our lives and giving us permanent hearing damage as a belated Christmas gift.”

Phil sighed in agreement as the kettle went off, stepping away from the window to finish making his coffee. 

“What about a Quietening Charm?”

Phil glanced up from stirring his drink to see Dan pulling his wand from the pocket of the jeans he was still wearing from the night before, twirling it between his fingers.

“I mean, all I would have to do is give the drill a little _zap_ , and we can all go back to peace and quiet,” Dan said, glancing over his shoulder at Phil. “Well, I mean, other than still having to listen to the downstairs neighbor’s... _activities_ …”

Phil snorted over the top of his mug. “Yeah, and I’m sure the Muggles wouldn’t be _at all_ alarmed when the piece of heavy machinery they’re using suddenly goes completely silent. Need I remind you _yet again_ of the Statute of Secrecy?”

“But, Phil—”

“Dan, I’ve told you a hundred times, we can’t just use magic on the Muggles to fix this,”Phil sighed. “We’ve already been summoned to the Ministry one too many times over letting things accidentally slip in our Youtube videos. I don’t really fancy having to explain another violation.”

Dan huffed out a breath, crossing his arms over his chest and shooting death glares at the men outside as they started up their equipment. 

“You know,” Phil said, wrapping both hands around his mug as he leaned back against the counter, “we _could_ revisit the idea of moving…” Phil trailed off at the end, leaving the question hanging in the air for Dan to answer. 

Dans shoulders slumped at the suggestion, and he looked back at Phil with a pout. “But _Phiiiiillll_ , that’s so much _woooork_ …”

Phil shook his head, chuckling at the younger man. He grabbed his half-eaten bowl of cereal and headed toward the lounge, leaving Dan to stew in his sleep-deprived, construction-fueled rage and to—hopefully—seriously consider the possibility of moving.

\- - -

With his chin slumped in his hand and fingers drumming against the side of his face, Phil let out a deep sigh, the sound echoing a little in the tiny upstairs office. 

He’d been staring at the computer screen for so long he could almost feel his eyes starting to cross of their own accord. After watching the same clip of himself talking in their new gaming video so many times to place jumpcuts, he was verging on hating the sound of his own voice a little. 

Deciding he needed a second opinion, Phil pushed away from the desk and rolled his chair closer to the open doorway.

“Hey, Dan?” he called down the stairs toward the lounge where he knew the younger man had been glued to his trademark sofa crease for most of the day.

Waiting for a response, Phil used his socked toes against the carpet to absentmindedly swivel back and forth in his desk chair for a minute or so, but there was no sign of Dan having heard him.

“Dan? Are you still there?” 

Phil rose from his chair, staring down the stairs to investigate. As he neared the lounge, he began to make out the truly dulcet tones of the drill outside whirring away, and he mentally prepared himself for the string of complaints he was sure to be subjected to whenever he did find Dan.

Peeking his head around the open lounge door, though, he was surprised to see Dan happily typing away at his laptop with a small smile on his face, as if blissfully unaware of the noises streaming through their flat.

As Phil got closer, he noticed that Dan had some kind of giant clear bubble encasing the top half of his head, coming down just low enough to cover his ears, like a bubble beanie of sorts.

“Umm… Dan?” 

When the other man still didn’t answer, eyes remaining locked on his computer screen, Phil stepped closer to the sofa, waving a hand in front of Dan’s face. At the unexpected movement, Dan let out a yelp and flailed his long limbs a bit, nearly knocking his laptop to the floor.

“ _PHIL!_ What the hell?”

Phil recoiled a bit at the impossible decibel Dan’s voice had reached, stepping further away as the younger man waved his wand to get rid of the bubble. 

“I think your voice just broke the sound barrier,” Phil said with a frown, rubbing at his ears. 

Dan answered with an unamused eyebrow raise. “I would correct that again, but honestly, if you haven’t grasped it by now, I doubt you ever will.” 

“Hey, don’t mock my Muggle-science-less upbringing!” Phil shot back with a pout. 

“Yeah, yeah, dork,” Dan chuckled, “now did you have an actual _reason_ for scaring the life out of me?”

“Well, I was calling for you from the office for editing opinions,” Phil replied, shoving his hands in his jean pockets backwards, “but I guess you didn’t hear me.” 

Dan nodded. “Bubble Head Charm. I modified it to cover my ears and block sound out instead of using it for breathable air. You know, since _someone_ didn’t want me using magic in front of the Muggles…”

“It’s kind of impractical, though, isn’t it?” Phil asked, leaning back against their dining table. 

“If impractical means no incessant drilling _and_ I don't have to listen to you singing Celine Dion in the shower anymore, then I don’t want to be practical ever again.”

“ _Daaaan_ ,” Phil whined, “you can’t force me to listen to Muggle music for years and then get annoyed at the ones that stick in my head!” He accentuated his point by sharply crossing his arms over his chest. “Besides, the bubble is...is dangerous!”

“How so?” Dan asked, a small crease taking up residence between his eyebrows.

“Well…” Phil worried his bottom lip between his teeth. “What if there’s a fire in the flat, and I need to warn you, but you can’t hear me?”

Dan shot him his classic “this guy” look that he usually saved for his viewers. “You’ve got a wand, haven’t you?” 

“I mean, yeah—”

“So, why would you need to come _warn_ me,” Dan interrupted, “when you could just _Aguamenti_ the crap out of the fire yourself?”

His logic defeated, Phil frowned. “Well, what if someone’s at the door, and I don’t hear them?” 

“Oh, is that what this is about, then?” Dan replied, adopting a fake sympathetic pout. “Poor little Philly doesn’t want to have to start answering the door for his own mail instead of making his incredibly kind and selfless flatmate go up and down a billion stairs every single morning? Is that it, ‘ya rat?”

Phil huffed, watching Dan chuckle and wave his wand again to envelope his head in another bubble. 

As the younger man went back to scrolling on his laptop, Phil stomped over to the couch, pulling his wand from his pocket. 

“Phil? Phil, what are you doing?” Dan asked, voice slightly too loud from where his ears were covered and eyeing his friend carefully as he stalked closer, wand drawn. 

Phil smirked, extending his arm and using the end of his wand to burst the bubble around Dan’s head, a satisfying _pop!_ sounding throughout the lounge. 

“For Merlin’s sake, Phil! What the hell?” Dan exclaimed, eyes wide. 

Phil shrugged, pocketing his wand and heading out of the lounge. “Find another way, please!” he said in a sing-song voice.

“I _could_ just cast the charm again, you know!” Dan called out as Phil started back up the stairs to the office. 

“Yeah, but you won’t,” Phil answered over his shoulder with a laugh. “Now come help me edit, _rat_.”

\- - -

“Hey, guys! So, yesterday I—”

_Bzzzzzzzzzzz!_

Phil sighed, rolling his eyes at yet another ruined take. He had been trying to film the intro to his new video for a good ten minutes, only to be interrupted by construction outside each time he started talking.

This had been a recurring theme for several weeks, and if it wasn’t the drill buzzing away, it was the downstairs neighbor being loud or the incessant phone ringing next door cutting into his takes. 

Finally giving up on filming for the day, Phil decided to venture out into the flat to see what Dan was up to and maybe try watch a movie together. 

He found the younger man across the hall in his bedroom, an unusual smile plastered on his face. He was humming to himself as he waved his wand, tidying up the laundry scattered around his floor.

When Dan saw Phil in the doorway, his smile somehow grew impossibly wider, dimples going deeper than Phil could remember seeing in awhile. 

“Philly! How was filming?”

“Er...not great,” Phil answered, watching with a furrowed brow as Dan went about his chores in an uncharacteristically happy manner, “kept getting interrupted.” 

“Well, that’s just a shame!” Dan replied, smile never wavering. “I’m sure the builders don’t mean any harm, though! We’ve all got to make a living, am I right?”

“I...I suppose? Dan, are you okay?”

Dan glanced at Phil over his shoulder from where he had moved on to dusting the top of his wardrobe. “Right as rain! Why do you ask?”

“Well, just yesterday you wanted to jinx the whole lot of them...”

Dan froze in the middle of cleaning. “I did, didn’t I?” he said, turning to face Phil, barely suppressing giggles. “It’s funny how fast things can change, isn’t it?” 

“Okay, who are you, and what have you done with my best friend?” Phil exclaimed at the other man’s bizarre behavior. For good measure, Phil grabbed one of the pillows from Dan’s bed to use as a shield and pointed his wand toward the obvious imposter.

This only caused “Dan” to laugh even harder, nearly doubled over. “Silly Philly! I’m still the same old me!”

Not entirely convinced, Phil kept his wand arm raised. “Prove it, then. Tell me something only the _real_ Dan would know.”

The other man, still grinning, seemed to rack his brain for a moment before thinking of something. “On your seventeenth birthday, we went up to the Astronomy Tower to stargaze, but we got caught by McGonagall!”

Phil only lowered his wand slightly. “I mean, to be fair, anyone who knows anything about our time at Hogwarts could have guessed that. We snuck up there _a lot_.”

Dan shook his head, smile firmly intact. “Yeah, but your birthday was the first time I told you why I like space so much. You know, because there’s so much more out there than what meets the eye?”

Hearing the extra detail that only the two of them knew and realizing that this _had_ to be the real Dan, Phil let his wand arm drop back to his side and relinquished his hold on his pillow shield. 

“But if it really is _you_ , why do you look so...cheery?” Phil asked, examining his friend’s happy expression before coming to a potentially horrifying conclusion. “Oh, God! Did we have another gas leak?”

Dan snorted a little. “No! It’s because I used a Cheering Charm so I wouldn’t be bothered by the drilling sounds anymore! Duh!”

Phil groaned, grabbing his overly joyous best friend by the shoulders and steering him over to sit down on the bed. 

“Dan, weren’t you kind of rubbish at that charm in school?”

“Yes, I was!” Dan chuckled at the memory, leaning forward a bit to boop Phil on the nose. “I always overdid it, made it too powerful!”

“And yet you thought it would be a good idea to use it on _yourself?_ ”

“I did! And I _definitely_ did it too strong!” Dan nodded with a grin, though Phil was starting to see a bit of underlying panic in his eyes. “I can’t stop smiling no matter how many dark, depressive thoughts I try to think! Can you help me?” 

Phil grimaced, sitting down next to his friend on the edge of the bed. “Unfortunately, I think we’re just going to have to wait for it to run its course…”

“But what if it never wears off?” Dan exclaimed, a happy laugh not quite matching his words escaping as well. He grabbed Phil’s arms, shaking him back and forth a little. “I can’t stay this cheerful forever, it’s like the complete _opposite_ of my branding!”

“Okay, okay, calm down,” Phil attempted to soothe, extracting himself from Dan’s grip. “Let’s just go watch some TV or something until the effects wear off a little, huh?” 

Phil got to his feet, offering Dan a hand to help him do the same and then leading the younger man toward the lounge.

“Fine,” Dan said, his plastered-on smile now even more disconcerting. “But it needs to be something _super_ serious and edgy.” 

“ _Riverdale_ it is, then?” Phil snickered.

“ _Phiiiiillll!_ "

\- - -

As Phil blinked awake, he very quickly became aware of two things: first, although the sun was barely even up yet, the construction work next door was already well under way, and second, he was absolutely _freezing_.

He blindly felt around on the bed for a moment before figuring out what felt wrong. _Where is my duvet?_

Phil rubbed at his eyes, making sure he wasn’t just imagining things in his still half-asleep haze, but no, his duvet really was gone, leaving him with only a thin top sheet that offered little to no warmth.

He sat up and grabbed his glasses, glancing around the room to see if there was some kind of duvet-eating monster lurking in the corner that his Hogwarts professors had just conveniently forgotten to teach him about, or—the more realistic answer—if he had simply kicked his blanket across the room in his sleep. Seeing neither, he decided to investigate further, clutching his wand and tiptoeing across the room.

Stealthily pulling back his bedroom door and creeping into the hallway, Phil quickly noticed that Dan’s bedroom door was cracked open. Realizing that, _clearly_ , the duvet-eating monster had finished off Phil’s bedding and then snuck across the hall for dessert, Phil gently pushed the door open more and edged his way into the room wand-first, ready to protect both his best friend and the remaining blankets in their flat.

However, his defensive stance quickly deflated when he saw that not only was Dan’s monochrome bedding already gone, but so was Dan himself. 

Phil frowned, gripping his wand tighter as he ventured back into the hall and made his way toward the lounge. 

Sneaking along with his socked feet and making almost no noise, he could very clearly hear the sounds of the drill outside, but as he approached the closed lounge door, he was also beginning to make out some sort of strange noise coming from inside, an almost _whooshing_ sound, like something flying through the air. 

“Please don’t be a duvet monster, please don’t be a duvet monster,” Phil whispered to himself as he cautiously turned the doorknob. 

When the door swung open, though, he was greeted with something _far_ more confusing than a previously undiscovered magical creature, as almost every inch of the walls in their lounge was covered with various blankets, coats, and even a few jumpers, with Dan standing in the middle of the room, using his wand to orchestrate the redecoration.

“Dan…” Phil managed when he finally found his voice again, “what exactly are you doing?”

“What does it _look_ like I’m doing?” Dan replied in an exasperated tone, as if the answer were obvious. 

“Well…” Phil began as he stepped further into the lounge, watching as Dan guided his black and white-checked duvet across the room and secured it to the wall next to his potato-sack jumper and Phil’s space coat. “It _looks_ like you’re attempting the world’s largest blanket fort.”

Dan rolled his eyes in response, stepping back to survey his work. “I’m soundproofing the lounge.”

“Oh, right, of course,” Phil replied skeptically, barely jumping out of the way in time to avoid being hit with his own blue and green bedding as Dan maneuvered it through the air. “What a brilliant idea, _why_ didn’t _I_ think of that?”

“Your vote of confidence is greatly appreciated,” Dan said flatly, tugging lightly on Phil’s blanket to make sure it would stay put. 

“Don’t we sort of need our blankets and coats to, oh, I don’t know...stay warm?” Phil asked sarcastically. “It’s kind of the middle of winter, Dan.”

“Yeah, and at this point I would almost rather _freeze_ than listen to that construction for one more day!”

Phil slowly walked forward, placing a hand on the younger man’s shoulder. “Dan, listen, you’re my best friend, and I’ve always trusted you to tell me when one of my ideas is a little...out there—”

“The Marshmallow Mug is never going to be a thing, Phil,” Dan interrupted. “I know you love it, but it’s just too sticky—”

“— _so_ , please trust _me_ when I tell you that you’ve gone a little off the deep end with this one.”

Dan sighed, shoulders sagging a smidge. “Can I at least finish the walls and see if it makes any difference?”

Phil couldn’t help but crack a smile. “Fine, finish the wall,” he chuckled, “but I’m stealing this back.”

Phil reached into the pile of blankets and coats Dan had dumped on the couch, pulling his blue and green patchwork quilt out from under Dan’s furry pimp blanket and wrapping it around himself before heading back to bed and leaving Dan to his (slightly crazed) mission.

\- - -

Soundproofing the lounge, as it turns out, did not work. Dan, however, was still determined to find a solution. 

Over the next few days, Phil had become accustomed to talking his flatmate down from his random bursts of inspiration at all hours of the day. So far this had included a suggestion to wipe the construction workers’ memories ( _“I could just_ Obliviate _them all and plant new memories convincing them to all move to Scotland or something!” “Yeah, but wouldn’t the company just hire more workers?” “Phil! Not helping!”_ ), a particularly loud day where Dan simply decided to use magic to “accidentally” break the drill ( _“Dan…” “I know, I know, I promise I’ll fix it later, I just needed a few hours of peace.” “No, Dan, look: they already got a replacement drill.” “...damn.”_ ), and an incident involving a highly questionable potion recipe Dan had found on a late night Witchipedia odyssey that claimed to give the user the ability to selectively tune out certain sounds, but in reality resulted in complete hearing loss altogether ( _“BUT PHIL, THIS IS PERFECT! I CAN’T HEAR THEM AT ALL!” “No, Dan, you can’t hear anything.” “WHAT?” “Grab your shoes, I’m taking you to St. Mungo’s.”_ )

“What about a Time Turner?” 

Dan’s voice came from behind Phil, who was attempting to fit all of the mementos from their recent tour into the hall closet. He had already put an Undetectable Extension spell on virtually every storage space in their flat, but it looked like even the charm had its limit, and that limit seemed to be the giant paper maché Dil head he was trying to find a home for. 

“A Time Turner?” Phil asked over his shoulder, a bit distracted as he tried giving the prop another shove, to no avail. 

“Yeah, I just go back in time to before the owner even bought the property next door in the first place and somehow convince him not to buy it! It’s genius!” Dan explained, eye only slightly twitching. “And it _technically_ doesn’t even violate the Statute of Secrecy because the Muggles wouldn’t even _see_ any magic!”

“I don’t particularly care for the sounds of that ‘technically,’” Phil replied, giving up and setting the Sim head on the floor. “Plus, that plan seems to rest pretty heavily on the Ministry actually agreeing to give you a Time Turner, and somehow I don’t think your argument is as strong as you think it is.”

Dan sighed, running a hand through his curls. “I swear I’m going to figure this out, even if it kills me.”

Glancing at the overstuffed closet, Phil quirked an eyebrow. “Once again, we _could_ just move…”

“But...but this place is synonymous with ‘Dan and Phil!’” Dan whined. “Our Muggle _and_ magical viewers are attached to this place now, we can’t just up and leave the ‘Phlat!’”

Phil cringed at the nickname. “Okay, first off, after TABINOF we agreed to _never_ call it that again,” he chuckled, and even Dan had to stifle a laugh in his sweater paws. “And second, I really think we’re starting to outgrow this place.”

Dan nudged the Dil head with his toes, nodding begrudgingly.

“Plus,” Phil continued, “we’re being penetrated by sound from three angles—”

“Phil! For Merlin’s sake, do you even think before you talk?”

“— _and_ , it’s literally starting to fall apart around us. I mean, there are gas leaks, and broken kitchen tiles, and I _swear_ I saw the crack in my bedroom wall grow right in front of my eyes earlier.”

“Or you’ve been watching too much _Doctor Who_ again.”

“Dan, seriously, aren’t you ready for a change?

Dan chewed his bottom lip. “I don’t know…”

“Just think about it?” Phil bargained. “We still have a little bit left on our lease, so we don’t have to make any real decisions just yet.”

Phil rocked back and forth a little on the balls of his feet in anticipation of Dan’s answer, and although the younger man rolled his eyes at his incredibly apparent optimism, Dan couldn’t suppress a small smile. 

“Fine, I’ll _consider_ it,” he finally relented, making it sound like a huge inconvenience, but Phil would take what he could get. 

As Dan started toward his room, Phil turned to the closet to get back to work on his TATINOF-themed Jenga tower and the Dil head that refused to fit. 

“Hey, Dan?” Phil said, picking up the prop as Dan stopped to look back. “Do you think this guy could live in your room for the time being?” He cocked his head to the side in question, shifting Dil’s head in his hands to mimic the motion.

“Soz, mate,” Dan replied reproachfully, although Phil could see mischief glinting in his eyes. “I’ve got some _serious_ pondering to do about our current living situation, and I just don’t know if I can do it with our virtual son staring at me. Guess he’s all yours!”

With a barely contained laugh, Dan pushed his bedroom door shut, leaving Phil standing alone with the giant prop in the hallway. 

“Well, at least he’s going to think about it,” Phil said, turning Dil around to face him. “That’s a good sign, right?”

Phil made the Sim “nod” in agreement before tucking it underneath his arm and heading off toward his own bedroom.

“Come on, Dilly, let’s find you a nice comfy spot on the floor.”

\- - -

“Dan, I think I finally got the wifi working. Are you ready for the liveshow?”

“Yeah, just a sec, let me straighten this out a little.”

Phil smiled as he leaned against the doorframe, watching as Dan tediously shifted the mirror above his bed back and forth until it was to his liking. 

“You know, I was skeptical of the moon theme,” Phil said, glancing around Dan’s new bedroom, “but now that I see it, I think I finally understand your _vision_.” He used his hands to mimic framing the room, emphasizing his last word. 

Dan clambered off his bed where he had been sitting to fix the mirror, looking at the finished product for himself. 

As a wide smile spread across the younger man’s face, his dimples in full effect, Phil saw a brief flash of the timid Astronomy-loving fifth year he had befriended all those years ago, and suddenly couldn’t believe how much they had both changed since then.

“It’s perfect,” Dan said, interrupting Phil’s trip down memory lane and snapping him back to the present. “I think all these years of redecorating Dil’s house have finally paid off.”

“Well, _almost_ paid off,” Phil said, squinting his eyes a bit. “Your bed isn’t _quite_ symmetrical on that wall…”

“What? That’s impossible!” Dan exclaimed in a panic, whipping around to check. 

By the time he had confirmed that yes, Phil was just messing with him, the other man had already left the room laughing.

“Come on, Dan, time for our promised post-moving live stream!” Phil called over his shoulder, still chuckling. “We have to give the people what they want!”

“You know what?” Dan said with a frown, joining Phil on their old creased sofa that had made the journey across London with them. “I _was_ going to give you free reign with the house plants in this new place, let you pick out as _many_ as you wanted without complaining, but after that little stunt, I’m considering banning them from the house altogether.”

Phil pretended to pout, knowing full well Dan had been reading up on terrariums for himself all week and had no real intention of any such ban. 

As he reached for his laptop, ready to start their first live show with no threat of drilling sounds, gas leaks in the hallway, or the walls suddenly caving in around them, he was overcome with a sense of peace. Although there were still decorating decisions to be made and countless boxes to unpack, he finally felt at home.


End file.
